More grocery stores in your neighbourhood could soon be offering you oddly shaped tomatoes and soon-to-be-expired cartons of yogurt for cheap.
Driving the news: Québec-based food rescue app FoodHero has begun expanding outside its home province, partnering with Sobeys parent Empire to bring its discount shopping services to over 500 grocery stores across Ontario, Atlantic Canada, and Western Canada.
- FoodHero lets users see stores selling surplus stock, items near their best-before dates, ugly-looking produce, and other products being offloaded at a steep discount.
Big picture: FoodHero is expanding as food recovery apps gain popularity. Toronto-based app Flashfood saw its downloads triple in Canada in January of this year while Danish app Too Good To Go has struck partnership deals with major chains like Tim Hortons and Metro.
- Per a recent study by Dalhousie’s Agri-Food Analytics Labs, 57.6% of Canadians have yet to try a food rescue app, but the 95.1% who have would recommend them.
Why it matters: These apps have the potential to kill two birds with one shopping cart-sized stone. Firstly, they can help stores reduce food waste — a rampant problem in Canada with as much as 60% of food produced trashed annually. Secondly, they offer a way for consumers to slash grocery bills, which remain elevated even as inflation cools.—QH